Drinking Water Across More Parks

Committee: Community Resources

Cost: $100,000

Location: Parks and playgrounds without fountains

Short Description: Install new water fountain/bottle-fillers at up to 10 parks that lack drinking water fixtures. This will ensure that more residents can enjoy free, clean, drinking water at their local park, no matter which neighborhood they call home.

Long Description: About one third of Cambridge parks do not have drinking fountains. Installing more drinking fountains will provide Cambridge residents with access to free drinking water as they pass through parks. This would particularly impact people who regularly spend time at parks, including young children and their caretakers, the elderly, joggers, and the homeless.

If this proposal passes, the City will install combination water fountain/bottle-fillers at up to 10 parks, pending a review of which parks currently lack fountains and are feasible installation sites. Cambridge residents who submitted Participatory Budgeting ideas included requests to prioritize fountains for parks with playgrounds and sites near the Paul Dudley Path around the Charles River. These requests will be taken into consideration when determining locations. The City estimates that each water fountain/bottle fill station will cost $10,000, including possible additional water line work needed.

Photos/images:

Example of the type of water fountain/bottle-filler that will be installed at parks that currently lack drinking water fixtures. One was recently installed at Russell Field.

This map shows an estimate of which parks currently lack drinking fountains. Water fountain/bottle-fillers would be installed at up to 10 parks.

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We have water fountains in Dana Park that don’t work and haven’t worked for years. So can we fix the water fountains we already have before getting all gung ho about getting new ones? I support having more water available publicly in general though. It’s a perfect way to make buying water unnecessary and to cut down on the use of disposable plastic water bottles that I see littering the streets and under bushes everywhere.

Jessie Fernandes commented
2017-11-21 17:56:03 -0500

I am a caretaker of young children so I think this is a good idea but, most of the parks that currently have water fountains get turned off when the sprinklers get turned off at the end of summer. How will this differ? Can this change?

Edward Woll commented
2017-11-21 16:32:27 -0500

Terrific idea. This is one way to cut down on the use of bottled water in plastic containers.

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